In The News

Workers Without Borders

Jennifer Gordon March 12, 2009
Laws on immigration are weak obstacles against the companies tempted by cheap labor or workers desperate for a better life. Attempting strict limits, imposing a fear of deportation and an unwillingness to report unfair conditions, the US system depresses wages and work conditions for all workers – citizens and legal and illegal immigrants alike – argues law professor Jennifer Gordon in an opinion...

For Russia's Migrants, Economic Despair Douses Flickers of Hope

Michael Schwirtz February 16, 2009
Russia has the second largest immigrant population the world, after the US, once inviting workers from former Soviet republics to construct luxury hotels, office buildings and homes amid a decade-long oil boom. A drop in world oil prices hit the emerging economy of Russia, striking its migrant workers particularly hard. Employers withhold wages, and the government sets quotas on jobs for...

The Reverse Swing

Nayan Chanda February 16, 2009
Migration is a major force of globalization: Workers on the move seek opportunity and alleviate poverty in the process of dispersing and collecting new ideas. A harsh global economic recession has reduced opportunities for foreign and domestic labor alike, stirred protectionist instincts and prompted reverse migration around the globe. The most immediate impact, explains YaleGlobal editor Nayan...

Statistics Chief Karen Dunnell Inflames Row Over Foreign Workers

Sam Coates February 12, 2009
Foreign workers make up less than 10 percent of the UK employment base. Rather than accept responsibility for a bleak job outlook and problematic financial policies, politicians lambasted release of a statistic that exposes disappearing jobs for citizens in the midst of a campaign on “British jobs for British workers.” UK ministers were chagrined, notes a team of reporters for the Times in...

Laid-Off Foreigners Flee as Dubai Spirals Down

Robert F. Worth February 12, 2009
Globalization bestows and eliminates wealth with speed. A global credit crisis has struck tourism and financial industries hard, even for fast-growing economies like Dubai. Recent investors and home-buyers in Dubai have watched values plummet in the past year. Unpaid debt is a crime punishable by imprisonment. With a workforce that is about 90 percent foreign, many want to escape the downward...

Exporting People

Joseph Chamie January 21, 2009
In coming decades, a population rise in developing nations is projected to greatly surpass expected population declines among developed countries. Some developing nations that lack industry and ample jobs forestalled poverty by devising policies that encourage citizens to work abroad. That strategy has helped reduce poverty by bolstering domestic employment, individual skills and foreign exchange...

Zimbabwe's Cholera Victims Find Salvation in South Africa

Basildon Peta December 9, 2008
Cholera is typically transmitted through water or food contaminated by fecal matter, reports the World Health Organization. A corrupt government in Zimbabwe has made sanitation a low priority, and perhaps the biggest tragedy for its people is that a disease so easily treatable goes neglected. Treatment includes simple rehydration or hydration salts, reports WHO, but Zimbabwe health workers lack...